Applications of protective cultures and bacteriocins in wine making

Abstract

Wine making is a series of operations from harvesting of grapes to bottling wine ready to be consumed, and aspects of major importance are those related to microbiological control throughout the whole process and during wine ageing. This chapter will focus on those microbiological aspects related to wine quality, spoilage and preservation, and the possibility of applying either protective cultures of lactic acid bacteria (LAB), or protective fermentates, or those antimicrobial metabolites named bacteriocins, for wine microbiological control. Bacteriocins are peptides with antimicrobial activity that are naturally produced by some bacteria strains, which thus are able to inhibit the growth of other competing bacteria. Bacteriocins produced by food-grade LAB have high potential for wine biopreservation, with the additional advantage of allowing a decrease of sulphur dioxide levels, which is the major preservative that is currently used in wine making. © 2011 Woodhead Publishing Limited All rights reserved.